The Art of Happiness
by the.goal.is.greatness
Summary: [Red, White & Royal Blue] Happiness is a rebellion. [Alex x Henry]


**Title:** The Art of Happiness  
**Genre:** Romance / Drama  
**Rating:** M  
**Pairing:** Alex x Henry  
**Spoilers:** N/A  
**Summary:** Happiness is a rebellion.  
**Word Count:** 2,637  
**Warnings:** Ten times Henry loved Alex. So basically just literal fluff and PWP

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. _Red, White & Royal Blue_ belongs to Casey McQuiston. She is a goddess for writing this book. The summary is a quote from _Mirage_ by Somaiya Daud.

**A/N:** I need more of these characters. I'm so in love with them that I need more.

* * *

1.

There isn't a word he has to describe the way this boy makes him feel when he marches up to him at the Olympics, but whatever it is it certainly doesn't warrant his snapping and biting tone. A tone he knows already sounds harsh to delicate American ears. He wishes he could take them back. (What did he even say? He can't remember.) Wishes he could start the conversation over – say something dismissive, yet polite.

Because the hurt-puppy look in those honey brown eyes shoots straights down into his gut and simmers there like a pot of roiling water. It makes him nauseated, makes him regret, makes him dwell on it for days, weeks, months. Until it is a constant simmer of fear about what he will do if he ever meets that boy again. What will he do if he's ever confronted with that darkly handsome face, that quirking smile, that vibrant laughter?

He thinks to himself that it's probably a moot point – when would a prince ever come across that boy again?

2.

Karma is a cruel mistress. It seems no sooner than he's had the thought _regret_ that they'll never meet again, then it seems like Alex is everywhere. Then his mother is president and he's _everywhere _but he's decided that he hates Henry so it's all tension and aggression and anger and nothing like what Henry had imaged it would be when they met again. It's enough to make him a rigid stick of British etiquette, which he knows makes everything worse, makes Alex hate him more, but what else can he do?

He tries, again and again, to bring up their first meeting, to explain, but nothing works. And every time Alex is looking up at him, eyes flashing and defiant, and it is so breathtaking that it makes Henry want to slant his mouth down across his to shut him up, makes him want to unclench that jaw with his tongue, makes him want to twist his fingers in that hair.

"Are you even listening to me?"

He snaps back to the here and now with a jerk. Right, the wedding reception. And Alex who is staring at him with irritation. What had they been talking about? He can't remember. He's feeling hot underneath his formal clothing, his daydream of bruising kisses still running through his mind. He shifts farther away, needing distance, needing to not feel the heat between them that only he can feel. He shifts, but Alex presses closer, demanding, defiant, probably slightly drunk.

Then it is a blur of moments – words and action – and he is falling, reaching out for something to grab, finding nothing. There is a crash, he feels a sudden sinking in his stomach as he realizes it's probably the intricate wedding cake, and then there is a heavy weight crashing on top of him. He sucks in a startled gasp of hair, breathing in a wave of brown hair and whiskey and spice. He swallows his groan, trying to look dignified as they disentangle themselves from one another. He forces his mind away from their limbs winding together, a lock of hair brushing his face, a knee briefly wedged between his legs.

But he can't.

3.

He's never had something like this before. You'd think he would have, but it's too hard to get close to others. He's royalty – yes there are other members of the extended royal family, but he's _royalty_. He can count on one hand who's currently ahead of him in line for the throne. There aren't people he can openly talk to – have conversations with like a normal person. They are too worried about offending him. Or the moment he is too relaxed, someone is complaining that he behaved uncouth and common.

But this… punishment… he has with Alex, it the first real friendship he has ever had. It's a sad, sobering fact, but Henry wouldn't change his sad, lonely life before this because it means that he has this with _Alex_. Alex who is witty and charming and _sweet_. Alex who knows what it's like to be in the spotlight, who has ambitions and goals and doesn't care about the tabloids. Alex who sees him not as a prince, but as a person, and is beginning to like him for it.

Alex who is grinning at him in a drunken glow, dancing and happy and carefree and _beautiful_.

Alex who is kissing Nora.

The world slides out from under his feet and Henry is walking across the room and outside before he does something dramatic and cliché and bursts into tears. But he needs space, he needs _air_, he needs –

"What are you doing out here?"

Someone up there really hates him.

When he looks over at Alex, he loses all rationality. The image of him swaying and dancing is too vivid in his mind – his hips rocking, his body rocking to the music. It's too much for him. He's only a young man, he can't physically deal with this much unresolved sexual tension. It's killing him. And now Alex is all soft and pliant from the alcohol, his eyes glazed, but focused on Henry like a hawk. And he is smiling at Henry, soft and welcoming, at ease, and suddenly all the frustration, all the sleepless, restless nights, all the dreams and rock hard mornings are _right there_ in front of him and he suddenly finds himself trying to admit to Alex what he can barely admit to himself. But he _doesn't understand_, he doesn't _get it_, and –

_Stupid, stupid, stupid! What a fucking prat_, he thinks to himself as he leans forward and mashed their mouths together like he's been dreaming about for bloody _years_ and now Alex is going to hate him for real and there goes the only friend he's ever had the first boy to make him want –

But then Alex makes a strangled noise in his throat and _starts to kiss him back_. And it's perfect, amazing, surreal and…

He tastes like whiskey.

Henry wrenches his mouth away harshly, horrified at himself. He stammers an apology, he thinks, he doesn't know, and then he is gone.

4.

His mantra over the next stretch of time is basically, "if you ignore it, it will go away." It's stupid, idiotic, and childish, and he doesn't really expect it to work, but he can hope. Hope that Alex was too drunk to remember (but no) or that he'll laugh it off as a joke (probably not) or that he'll buy the excuse Henry has lined up to tell him that _he_ was the drunk one (not likely).

When, weeks later, he's completely cornered by Alex and shoved into a room at the White House, he thinks, _This is it_. _He's going to kill me. Bloody well deserve it, too_. He's talking, but he's not paying attention to what he's saying.

"Shut up," Alex growls, and the sound shoots all the way down Henry's spine, "shut all the way up." And then Alex kisses him. _Kisses him_. They're kissing. And not one is drunk.

And it is _glorious_.

It's hard press of teeth and bodies shoved together so hard there can be no doubt in either mind as to whether or not they're enjoying themselves. When Alex bodily forces him onto a nearby table and presses in close, closer, closer, Henry's legs fall open and then they're really pressed together in a single line of heat and he can't help the noise that comes from his throat at the feeling. It's too good, it's perfect, it's everything, yes, _yes_, just a little more –

"Time's up."

Someone up there really does hates him.

6.

He's spoken to crowds of people numbering in the millions. Met with foreign heads of state. He has weekly luncheons with the bloody _queen_. But somehow knocking on a door has him terrified.

Maybe because he knows when he does, when he walks in and steps over the threshold, everything will change. It'd be easy now to laugh this off, go back to the way things were before. But once he walks inside that room, once it's just him and Alex in the dead of night, alone, no one to interrupt… there will no going back.

Someone knocks on the door – he's startled to realize that it's himself, when had he gathered that much courage? – and then he is inside and they are alone and Alex is forcing him onto the couch and Alex is sprawled on top of him and Henry knows there is no going back. He swallows his fear, his insecurity, because Alex is looing confident and sure of himself and this moment, and then they're on the bed and Henry can't – he can't –

Alex is perfect. There's so much of him to explore and Henry wants to see and touch and taste every inch, but Alex is enthusiastic and willing and really talented with his mouth and Henry can't think can't _breathe_ with that wet hot heat swallowing him down. He wants to cry, wants to press his face into the pillow in agony, want to writhe and press his legs together to try and ease the ache that is between them. But Alex is holding his hips, he is trailing those hands along his ribcage and up his chest, then down, down, down to brush against his thighs and he is climbing, climbing, climbing, he's wound so tight it _hurts_ –

And then, with a snap, he's shuddering and shaking, boneless with the fall back to earth.

With startling clarity he thinks, _If I ever become king, I'd gladly give this man half my country to never stop doing that._

7.

It's not that Henry _hates_ Polo, it's just that there's always so many people there to see a prince play that it takes the fun out of the match. Sometimes he just wants to play, wants to ride his horse and play to win without the dozens and dozens or paparazzi and single women in the crowd just waiting for a glimpse of him.

But his views on Polo are about to change. In fact, yes, Polo makes the world go round.

Because anything that makes Alex corner him in a tack room and attack him with such fervor deserves to be the national sport.

8.

Americans have no class.

It's a common enough insult in England, but this time Henry means it with a fierce sort of fondness, okay, horniness if he's being completely honest with himself. Which he is.

How everyone convinced him to come out for dancing and karaoke is beyond him, but it is worth it to watch Alex in what Henry can't help but believe is his element: surrounded by friends at a party. He glows with it. His eyes are bright, his shoulders relaxed, his smile wide. He throws back his head and laughs often, revealing to eager eyes a long unmarked column of throat. Henry follows him with focused eyes as he dancing, sinuous and sensual, and images him naked, imagines those long limbs wrapped around his, imagines that fit body undulating against his. He sips his drink to keep from groaning.

When Alex sprawls inelegantly beside him, Henry watches him take a suggestive pull from his beer bottle, lips wrapped delicately around the tip, eyes watching Henry over the rim, knowing and teasing. Henry turns away before Alex gets any ideas while they're in a club full of people.

His phone pings.

_Wanna do something stupid?_

He arches a brow up at Alex, who's holding his phone and looking practically devilish. His pupils are completely blown.

_Follow me to the bathroom and this mouth will make you see stars._

He can't stop the strangled noise that escapes him and is ridiculously thankful the music is loud enough to cover the sound. His mind is filled with images and this is probably going to be the most undignified thing he's ever done but Alex is looking at him like the devil incarnate and beckoning him forward with teasing glancing and coy smiles and ah, well, fuck it.

9.

He's not exactly nervous – but he's some blend of excited and terrified that he doesn't have a word for. _The French probably have a word for it_, he thinks. _Or the Germans_. Because he knows what he's going to offer Alex when they get back to their room and he wonders if he will say yes, if he will want to, if he will –

"Are you sure?" Alex's eyes are wide.

Henry nods. He's never been more sure of anything in his life. When he was younger, and just learning about this side of himself, he'd been unsure – but there hadn't been that many people with discretion to be too picky. It had been less about his choice than about who would keep their mouth shut. But he was one hundred percent sure about Alex.

And it's perfect.

It's everything his other times with other men hadn't been. _This_ is real and human and it's closeness that has nothing to do with skin but everything to do with souls and it makes him want to cry when they're suddenly one person because it's in that moment that he knows, _he knows_, that this is it for him. There's only Alex. He loves him.

But no, he can't say that. Alex is too free-spirited and worldly to be tied down to an in-the-closet prince of England. Henry knows he can't tell him. But he can try and show him. In soft hands sliding down the smooth line of spine, in fingers carding through thick hair, in soft kisses on cheekbones and eyelashes and the bow of lips and the tip of nose. In clenching thighs and curling toes. In panting breaths _ah, ah, yes, please, more, of God, Alex, yes, Alex_

But in every moan and sigh of his name he thinks _I love you_.

_Please, please, ugh, I love you, yes, yes, love you, oh God, please, love, so close_

_Alex, Alex, Alex_

_Love you, love you, love you_

10.

Everyone knows. Everyone _knows_. Alex is going to hate him. I've ruined his career, his life. I've ruined his mother's life. I'm dead.

He can feel the panic attack in his sharp breaths, but he doesn't know how to stop it. He doesn't know what he'd even begin to say to Alex, so he says nothing. He's not really surprised when Alex, shows up at the palace, looking like a knight about to fight a dragon to rescue his princess.

As soon as they're alone, he feels foolish for not calling, because Alex… Alex has a way of making everything better, of making everything seem right and easy. They're together. That's enough. Henry feels like he's coming back into himself with every brush of hands and lips. Each shuddering breath unclenches a little bit more of the panic inside of him, the tightness in his chest, until he can finally take a deep, full breath for the first time in what feels like forever.

With Alex he feels whole, feels like he can conquer the world. Together he feels like they could take on the entire United States government and the Queen, too. They're unstoppable.

They're history.


End file.
